Putins World

Angela Stent is director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University From 2004 to 2006, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council She is the author of The Limits of Partnership US Russian Relations in the Twenty First Century, for which she w

We All Now Live In A Paranoid And Polarized World Of Putin S Making, And The Russian Leader, Through Guile And Disruption, Has Resurrected Russia S Status As A Force To Be Reckoned With From Renowned Foreign Policy Expert Angela Stent Comes A Must Read Dissection Of Present Day Russian Motives On The Global Stage.How Did Russia Manage To Emerge Resurgent On The World Stage And Play A Weak Hand So Effectively Is It Because Putin Is A Brilliant Strategist Or Has Russia Stepped Into A Vacuum Created By The West S Distraction With Its Own Domestic Problems And US Ambivalence About Whether It Still Wants To Act As A Superpower PUTIN S WORLD Examines The Country S Turbulent Past, How It Has Influenced Putin, The Russians Understanding Of Their Position On The Global Stage And Their Future Ambitions And Their Conviction That The West Has Tried To Deny Them A Seat At The Table Of Great Powers Since The USSR Collapsed.This Book Looks At Russia S Key Relationships Its Downward Spiral With The United States, Europe, And NATO Its Ties To China, Japan, The Middle East And With Its Neighbors, Particularly The Fraught Relationship With Ukraine PUTIN S WORLD Will Help Americans Understand How And Why The Post Cold War Era Has Given Way To A New, Dangerous World, One In Which Russia Poses A Challenge To The United States In Every Corner Of The Globe And One In Which Russia Has Become A Toxic And Divisive Subject In US Politics.

Angela Stent

10 thoughts on “Putins World ”

This book s focus is Putin s foreign policy After an overview author Angela Stent goes country by country giving enough of the country s history with Russia to inform what she has to say about today s relationships For Russia itself she covers what she calls frozen wars and separatist movements.Despite having influence out of proportion to the size of its economy and population, Russia wants a larger share of recognition and respect There is little empathy for the national grieving for its loss of empire in the 1980 s While Russia is not looking to restore the former Soviet Union it uses many means and methods to restore its importance in the world The autocracy of the tzars was replaced only briefly by western style leadership Russians perceive the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years as chaotic with a weak economy The authoritarian leadership of Putin is widely accepted by Russians Unlike the west or at least the west of the recent past issues of human rights and democracy do not factor into its foreign relations decisions The first country profiled is Germany where the relationship...

For anyone seeking a deeper analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin beyond the breathless headlines and talking heads of cable news, Angela Stent has produced a quality work based in serious scholarship.Stent examines the contemporary relationship between Russia and its global partners and adversaries with objective clarity Putin is portrayed as a three dimensional leader whose immovable worldview based in his own formative experiences presents a unique problem for the proponents...

Angela Stent s Putin s World is an excellent overview of contemporary Russian politics, examining Russia s relation to its neighbors e.g the EU, the former Eastern Bloc countries, America, and China and itself and its past Stent is able to condense much of Russia s history into 350 pages, which is bound to omit context and cultural elements, in her attempt to explain Russia today I applaud St...

I grew up in the 1950 a and 1960 s, during the worst of the Cold War between the United States and our arch enemy, the Soviet Union I m about two years older than Vladimir Putin and if I can remember Duck and Cover , I m sure he remembers something similar from his school days in Leningrad But what happened thirty or so years later, when the Soviet Union dissolved under Mikhail Gorbachev back into Russia in the early 1990 s Russia had set free its eastern European allies like Poland, Hungary, and the others, as well as the old Soviet states like Ukraine and the Stans in the late 1980 s Russia was without her empire and Boris Yeltsin was at the helm of the government Yeltsin had a drinking problem and the power eventually moved into the capable hands of Vladimir Putin an old KGB hand How has Putin done in governing Russia, which is much smaller and less important economically than 30 years ago Georgetown University professor Angela Stent looks at Putin, today s Russia, and the influence both have on the rest of the world, in her new book, Putin s World Russia Against the West and With the Rest.Stent takes a measured approach as she explains the past 70 years or so in Soviet Russian history I think she must know that most people reading her book are hoping to receive an education of sorts on Vladimir Putin and today s Russia She looks at Russia s internal relationships as well as those wit...

This book is another attempt to describe the strategic thinking and culture of Russia Unlike some of the recent works on the subject and in contrast with its title , it goes beyond personalizing Russian strategy and looks at things through a holistic lens There is an enduring question surrounding Russia s relations with its neighbors and the West Is it a Putin problem or a Russian problem The author seems to argue that while Putin s personality definitely plays an important role, he is largely a reflection of Russia s history, culture, and geography.This book examines Russia s relations with individual countries and with international organizations It also attempts to place specific events and challenges within this wider context From this analysis, it is easy for the reader to understand the historical imperatives both real and perceived that shape Moscow s approach to issues such as Ukraine, NATO and EU expansion, territorial disputes, religious extremism, energy policy, etc Again and again, we see that Putin s decisions are less a function of his own personal preferences than of his interpretation of traditional Russian interests Anyone who doubts that Russia desires to break apart NATO and undermine the existing international order need only look at the examples that the author provides Moscow s strategy is consistently aimed at support...

This book by Georgetown professor Angela Stent serves as an excellent introduction for the general American reader who wants to know about Russia The author begins by laying out some groundwork for a solid base knowledge about Russia, a base from which other information should keep in mind as a backdrop For example, it may be difficult for the average American to appreciate the scope and depth of Russia s tragic 20th century Just in the twenty five years during the reign of Stalin, Russia had 20 million deaths due to collectivization and famine on its farms and the political purges of the regime Twenty seven million Russians perished in World War II The scale of such tragedy has been depicted by Russian leaders as a source of Russian pride A Russia, as the author of this book puts it, that defeats all enemies through endurance and adversity Indeed, Russia s leaders, in their managing of Russians collective narrative and sentiment about their nation, strive to evoke not a land of repression and murder but a unique civilization with a grand destiny And as a nation with a long history of empire and international relations, projecting this image to the world has also been important Thus, in the expertly produced opening ceremonies of the Olympic games in 2014, foreign spectators were taken on what Stent calls a riveting ride through Russian histor...

This book reads like a collection of news stories, in that it doesn t present a cohesive thesis and hardly provides any original insights regarding modern Russia It also mentions the same events without any awareness that they were already discussed earlier in the book.